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"Mother Superior jumped the gun, Mother Superior jumped the gun."
--John Lennon 1940-1980,
Paul McCartney 1942-
The nun who haunted the Beatles seems restrained when compared to the American media jumping the gun in our monumental presidential election. The early call on the Florida results--based on shaky exit polling--should give news operations a good lesson in humility and the need for more patience and caution. But don't count on it.
First of all, you have to know the atmosphere in a newsroom is highly charged any election night, especially in a presidential year. The excitement and competitive zeal unleashes a real rush. We have to know who won and in a hurry. We pounce on every early result, any tip or trend, and we can't wait to get our mitts on the ultimate tool for predicting the winners in a hurry--the exit poll.
Tim Kiska is the director of exit polling for the Detroit News, and he's also the media critic, which gives him an interesting double perspective.
"If you've been in a newsroom on election night, it's just absolutely crazy, the adrenaline is running ... It's very easy to get swept up in the mania.
"Everybody wants to be right and first and sometimes those goals aren't compatible," Kiska wisely notes.
On Election Night, my job was to be resident pundit for election coverage for my station, the Fox-owned WJBK-TV in Detroit. We all knew it would be a close race and a long night, but early in the going, there were big surprises. Our station's had a deal for years with the Detroit News. We share exit polling results.
They pay for the polling and we put it on the air, giving the News credit for their usually fine work. Right away, we learned Gore took Michigan, a key state in his quest for the presidency.
Then a real shocker. The Fox Network and everybody else's exit polls show Gore taking Florida, the big enchilada. Wow. Gore wins in George W.'s little brother's state and this could be an early night.
Pennsylvania looks like Gore country, and with Michigan and Florida--bingo, the race is over, and it's not even 9:00 p.m. I'm on the air pontificating (imagine that) saying the fat lady is clearing her throat and getting ready to sing an aria for stiff Al and a dirge for George W. a.k.a. Shrub. Well, as we all know, that opera will never be heard in LaStrada. Mother Superior jumped the gun, and the American media should listen to the music.
The Florida exit polling was flawed, and since so many news organizations paid the same outfit for the results, we all got it wrong. Tim Kiska is one of the pioneers in using exit polling, and he knows the flaws.
"Be a little more careful, be less likely to rush to judgment, it's a good idea ... maybe sit back a little and try to reflect, as opposed to rushing out there like you're on your way to a fire," he says.
The veteran newsman calls Election 2000 crazy and humiliating but an experience that gives the media a valuable lesson.
"When you see your exit poll come in and it is very close, a lot of times the best thing to do is say, 'It's too close to call,'" the exit pollster urges. Let's hope the often arrogant media listens.
What's the big deal if it takes a couple of weeks to figure out who the new president will be? This is no crisis. The republic will survive. It's simply an untidy end to a most unenlightening campaign.
The naked hypocrisy of The Bushites is laughable. Does any reasonable person doubt Bush wouldn't be asking for the same recounts if he were on the short end of the Florida vote? The same folks who told us about the evils of the federal government and how the rights of the states need to be respected are the first to file formal legal action and seek the protection--not in the Florida state courts, which should have original jurisdiction in the largely state issue of election regulation but in the dreaded federal courts.
REMEMBER THIS FOR HISTORY: BUSH BEGAN THE COURT-AND-LAWYER SHUFFLE AND HE DID IT IN THE FEDERAL FORUM.
The petulant Election Night exchange between Shrub and Bore reminds us of what third-raters these pampered sons of privilege and spoiled baby boomers are. We can do much better, and either way the election goes, we lose. I'd prefer the Saturday Night Live version of a shared presidency than to have either of them run the show alone.
I still can't believe Gore didn't unleash Bubba Clinton in the last weeks of the campaign. What was he thinking? The people who weren't going to vote for him and didn't like him for his Clinton ties already were decided.
Call me old-fashioned, but I learned politics from some real pros. The late Niagara County Sheriff James K. Murphy and the late Democrat County Chairman Ermino Venuto (Nick Forster's predecessor) were long-time rivals, but they understood politics at its core. Murph and Erm would know, Clinton was willing to work anywhere. He loves to campaign. He did it for Hillary in New York, and would gladly have helped in states like West Virginia, New Mexico, Wisconsin and Oregon. He gets people excited. As Murphy and Venuto taught me in the final days of the campaign, the important thing is to get your people out. Forget about your opponent. Get your people out! Bubba could have done this. Gore, who is willing to crawl to the Oval Office, suddenly doesn't want the "stained Clinton" out front.
Venuto and Murphy were a damn sight smarter than the pack of Ivy Leaguers and D.C. vermin Gore surrounds himself with. If this election tangle goes on for weeks, don't worry. Remember, from November 1963 to August 1974, the Oval Office was occupied by two people who were certifiably nuts: Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. The republic survived these textbook paranoids, manic depressives and obsession freaks, both major-league substance abusers (alcohol and drugs).
We can handle a little election dispute.
When in doubt, pray to Erm and J.K. for guidance. They had far more political sense and understanding of the people than the clowns we've all had to listen to in this dispute.
Whoever pulls this off--Shrub or Bore--let's hope he'll be something like Gerald Ford, who followed Nixon to the White House.
Ford certainly wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he was refreshingly sane, decent and nice. He was a president who served with dignity.
If Shrub or Bore can serve the nation as well as Gerald Ford did, we could do far worse.